By: Samantha Nolan
With a record of 11 wins and 6 losses from the 2017-2018 season, the Saint Leo women’s lacrosse team shows a promising future for the upcoming seasons with their newest coach, Caitlin Hansen. Hansen, who was named the second head coach in Saint Leo women’s lacrosse history, led them to score the team’s best start of the season record with a six in a row game winning streak.
Coming from another college named Johnson & Wales University in Providence, Rhode Island where she was head coach for four years, she decided to get a fresh start somewhere new.
“I didn’t think the league was super competitive, so I kind of felt like I had reached the ceiling there,” said Hansen. “The men’s coach [ at Johnson & Wales] knew Coach Jorgensen here [at Saint Leo], so he told me that I should check out Saint Leo since the job was open.”
This decision in Hansen’s career ended up being a great change for the women’s lacrosse team, Hansen has set many goals for the team as they prepare for this season.
“I think the ultimate goal is winning games, but I think that where we are right now, we need to change our mindset and change our culture… how we think about ourselves and where we fit into this conference,” she said.
As past seasons haven’t been as successful, Hansen explains that she wants the girls to grow enough into finally believing that they are a great team and know that they can beat any school if they put their minds to it; after all, mental confidence has been proven to affect an athlete’s performance.
As a coach, Hansen loves working with the team and helping them grow more and more everyday into becoming something greater than the year before.
“I think that the team is a really great group of girls. I like the fact that we are proud to be at Saint Leo,” said Hansen.
Hansen sees being the underdog as a fun process because nobody is expecting much, which is why it gives so much more motivation to prove people wrong. Hansen is definitely motivated to prove them wrong.
